City notifying 39 villages for DDA land pooling

City notifying 39 villages for DDA land pooling

The city administration is in the process of notifying 39 villages falling under the South Delhi Municipal Corporation to declare urban villages in the proposed land pooling policy of the Delhi Development Authority. In this connection, the Directorate of Local Bodies has sought permission from the Election Commission. The DDA had approved a land pooling policy last year.

The villages, which are notified as green belts, lal doras, forests and unauthorised colonies, according to the NCR Regional Plan, will not be considered for land pooling. In cases where land with different land-uses has been pooled in, the whole chunk of land will be considered as one and the land-use will be determined accordingly.

Lal Doras are villages within which norms and controls of municipality or urban development authority are not applicable.

Land pooling is a technique in which the small parts of rural land is assembled together, developed with infrastructure and then re-distributed after deducting some part of it as a compensation towards infrastructure costs in a view to develop and bring out the potential of housing and infrastructure to reduce the load on the existing saturated areas, like core Delhi parts.

The DDA is also granting Rs 10 crore annual budget for land pooling. A DDA official said: “This is a sustainable and efficient technique in which people are provided with developed land in the terms of all kinds of infrastructure facilities such as roads, lighting, public parks and water sewage system.”

The DDA has identified around 200 villages in which 95 villages will be converted into development areas and 88 others into urban villages. Many areas like Mehrauli, Bijwasan, Matiala and Chattarpur, which have Metro connectivity and are close to the IGI Airport, have a good potential for housing and infrastructure development. Mehrauli, where a lot of land is available, is located close to Gurgaon in the south-west district of Delhi. It has good connectivity with both Gurgaon and Faridabad. Land pooling in this area is likely to impact its real estate demand. The demand of residential and commercial real estate will be very high in this area once they are developed by land-pooling method.

Estimates show all these villages put together will release around 70,000 acres of real estate in the national capital. A senior official said the process of land pooling has several benefits. “The city administration and the DDA will be able to earn revenue by developing and selling the land. The developers and landowners can also pool in their land so that they get all the infrastructural facilities without any legal issues. The entire process will generate a huge amount of developed land for developers and investors to build for housing, commercial and industrial purpose.”

It is reliably learnt that some big real estate developers in the city have bought a major chunk of land in these villages before notification of the land pooling policy. The Land Acquisition Act 2013 came into force in 2014. The Act states that the land acquisition will happen only if more than 80 per cent of the land owners accept it. That’s precisely why the government expects people to hand over their land for the development purposes rather than through acquisition process. The owners will get back their respective land after it is developed.

The new land policy has also reduced the minimum land for pooling from three hectares to two hectares. It is expected that about 40 per cent to 60 per cent of land will be given back to the land owner after development. The remaining land will be taken by the government as a cost for providing infrastructure.